Fusing contemporary dance with the explosive energy of Friday night lights, Atlanta-born choreographer Ogemdi Ude reimagines majorette traditions in MAJOR. Six electrifying dancers reclaim the movement of their girlhood to explore the fierce power, sensuality, and spirit of HBCU majorette culture. Set to a score that integrates Southern rap, horns, drumlines, and melodic R&B, the Nashville shows will feature special guest appearances by members of TSU’s beloved Sophisticated Ladies and the Grammy-winning Aristocrat of Bands.
Ogemdi Ude is a Nigerian-American dance artist, educator, and doula based in Harlem, New York, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. As an artist and educator, she supports others in investigating their cultural, familial, and personal histories — how they are embedded in their bodies and influence their everyday and performative movement.
We caught up with Ogemdi to get the inside scoop on her process as a choreographer, the influence of Majorettes on modern culture, and the importance of reckoning with one’s own physical history.
Ogemdi Ude – Choreographer, MAJOR
Majorette culture is a huge part of the Black American experience from early childhood to HBCU life. Was being a majorette always something you wanted to do?
Absolutely. When I was a kid, I would idolize my local high school majorette team, sitting behind them in the stands at football games in awe. I was able to practice majorette dance from the ages of 11-14, but then lost touch with it when I left the South after that.
How did Majorettes influence your journey into becoming a dancer and choreographer?
Majorettes was where I first began making dances for others. It pushed me, confused me, and confronted me – I loved the challenge. It was entrancing to me and taught me a lot about putting your personality and identity forward through the body. I loved it both for its aesthetics and the emotional and mental journey performing it would take me on. The unity and the individualization has shaped my perspectives as a choreographer building a work that highlights each dancer but also asks them to always be in flow and congruity with one another.
What was the spark for you to create the body of work – MAJOR?
I was falling out of love with contemporary dance and wanted to find a form of dancing that I felt originally rooted in, so I returned to majorettes in 2019. I wanted to be an amateur again – and this work asks for that. As I relearned the form I was teaching, I experienced the intimacy of being exposed in my journey of returning to a historicized body. That is the root of the work. Navigating one’s physical history and reckoning with how it collides with your dancing body now.
You touch on some sensitive topics within the majorette culture, what do you hope people experience or gain through seeing MAJOR?
I hope people will grapple with their own nostalgia and physical histories, exploring what stuck with them over the years and what first brought them into an understanding of their bodies. I also hope people will reckon with the importance of the legacy of majorette dance in the larger dance culture and how these cultural icons are an essential aspect of Black performance history. I make this work to pay respects to the stewards of the form, and to consider the importance of dancing in helping Black femmes understand themselves and their communities.
Why was Nashville an important city to showcase MAJOR?
The legacy of majorettes in Nashville is palpable, and it being our first tour stop in the South is so exciting and enriching for the work. We wanted to be steeped in the majorette legacy – to learn from it and to share our own approach to it.
Join us on Thursday, February 12th for a special Urbaanite Night Out to go see MAJOR at Oz Arts. Use code URBAANITE at checkout to receive a free drink ticket at the door. Buy tickets and learn more here.
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